My feeling about mainstream, monthly superhero books is that they should contain more invention, be more daring, take more chances... because they can. They're so transitory, they're so "here this week, gone later this week", why not go balls out on every single every issue? Especially with DC reducing their page counts. That makes it even more of an imperative that every page matters, motherfuckers! That old chestnut, "writing for the trade" is so over but not everybody has realized it. The way I've always seen it, comics are such a direct form of communication -- even superhero comics -- why waste them saying absolutely nothing? And I'm not talking about saying something profound... I'm saying, "Entertain my ass! Show me something I've never seen before!"... I may be stepping into a minefield of supreme pretention here, but fuck it. It's probably not fashionable to even think this much about genre fiction, let alone superhero comics. But the best superhero comics that have ever been created are both completely timeless and completely of their time. Their power lies simultaneously in both their simplicity and their complexity. When you break them down to some sort of essence, they're supposed to present pure, human emotion inflated and expanded to Wagnerian proportions. That's what they do best.

Ditko uses hands in the same way that normal cartoonists use faces; the hands on his characters express the emotional state, mood and temperament in ways that hands rarely do in real life. It's a fascinating approach to drawing people and a completely idiosyncratic storytelling style.

"The problems look pretty clear to me: we're not offering the right comics to the right people at the right price." [Brian Hibbs Tilting at Windmills on CBR]
Comics risk dangerous waters when publishers dampen the passion of the core foundation of periodical buyers, and their dependable cash flow, with short-term money-grabs like big crossover events, line overexpansions, overproduction of minis and new #1s, and price increases- and all in a recession too.
Update: Marvel Editor Tom Brevoort disagrees re: title glut, going from 5 Batman books to 1:"Every time this sort of thing has been tried in the past, the results have been the same. For the most part, multiple titles featuring the same character(s) dont cannibalize sales from one another, nor do the sales aggregate when you eliminate the other books." [Robot 6]

Boom! Studios on the 'Pollyanna-ish' 'Save Comics' Overhype of Digital Comics [Comics Alliance]
Some things are easier, but the challenge oddly stays the same: All the digitally-distributed comics in the world doesn't make more new people magically interested in reading comics and searching the web for "comics".

Must Read: Steel #1 and the state of the superhero comic [Robot 6]
The writer has no idea why events in the book are happening, the book changed since its solicitation, another potential minority character death, but don't worry, deaths are witheringly meaningless and temporary.

Lovenote to that mind-blowing 4-page spread by Steranko in Strange Tales #167 that asked you to buy two copies of the issue [Bully Says Comics Oughta Be Fun]

Holy mackerel, remember when Disney bought CrossGen's assets in 02004? In the tangled web of the world we weave, that now means a CrossGen imprint from Disney-acquired Marvel [Robot 6]

New Avengers #7 Braindump

1. Start with some positives: Immonen's art, as always. There were some funny lines among the Bendialogue. Wong got his moment- that is good.

2. Luke Cage and the rest of the group convincing Doctor Strange to stay and be the "Magical Avenger" was actually quite charming.

3. But probably unfortunately for Doctor Strange fans, that means more Doctor Strange: The Sad-Sack Supreme in this book. Two silent panels in this issue!- one with pursed lips as his friends coax him off the high ledge, one with head down in self-pitying shadow. He makes Teen Peter Parker's feet look made of concrete!

4. People are really buying these superhero comics with everyone sitting around talking without any action in them? For $4? Huh.

The Avengers discover the once-great former Sorcerer Supreme Agamotto needs his enchanted Eye back to protect him from the other members of the mystical Vishanti and tries everything from dimensional attack to manipulation to try and get it back... Current Sorcerer Supreme Doctor Voodoo sacrifices himself to protect the world from Agamotto's vicious attacks. The spirit of Voodoo's brother, Daniel Drumm, witnesses his brother's death and swears vengeance on Doctor Strange and the collected Avengers.

If the name of the artist who drew it does not appear on the cover, it's likely the graphic novel will be terrible [Douglas Wolk at Techland]

Big congratulations to uber-comics-blogger Progressive Ruin for seven years of uber-comics-blogging!
That means every cell in his body is now different from when he started, right? So who is that stranger blogging at PR now then!?

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